PREVIEW
Fight over IMF loan is pitting technocrats against radicals within the government
Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko has threatened to take his Patriotes africains du Sénégal pour le travail, l'éthique et la fraternité (Pastef) party out of government as the power struggle between himself and President Bassirou Diomaye Faye intensifies.
The ostensible reason for the dispute between the two leaders – the little-known Faye was named as Pastef’s presidential candidate in March 2024 after Sonko was prevented from standing because of a disputed criminal conviction – is the terms of a loan from the International Monetary Fund.
But the political rift between the two men has been widening in recent months, raising the possibility that they might run against each other in the next presidential elections due in March 2029. For now they are battling over the soul of the ruling Pastef, which won a landslide majority in November 2024.
The loan talks began shortly after Faye’s government discovered more than US$7 billion in off-balance sheet debt that had been accrued under its predecessor Macky Sall’s regime.
Sonko has hardened his position against the IMF’s recommendation that Senegal’s debt burden must be formally restructured; Faye has remained more flexible on the question. Conflicting statements on the IMF talks from Sonko and Faye last November triggered a swift hike in the interest rates on the country’s debts. Sonko has repeatedly said that Senegal does not need to restructure and can fund its repayments (Dispatches, 19/1/26, Sonko and Chapo play a waiting game with the IMF); other senior officials reject that contention.
President Faye’s allies, including Finance Minister Cheick Diba, are close to agreeing to an IMF demand that the government centralise debt control under the finance ministry (AC Vol 67 No 5, Sonko’s last stand as debt trap closes in).
Asked by a supporter about the relationship between the two men, Sonko said in a live broadcast on 1 March that this would depend on ‘if the president is aligned with his party’.
‘If the president is not aligned with his party, even though we all govern together, we're in what I call a 'soft power-sharing' situation,’ he said. ‘We would manage our differences accordingly, and we would also seek common ground to move forward together.’
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